Wilber Breseman is just glad to be alive after a mission trip to Bangladesh.

“Normally, we do about 100 children on every mission,” he said Thursday. “We did 49 on this one because we had so many riots. Within two miles of our hospital, we had over 1,000 people killed or wounded. We had six riot police right outside the operating room with shotguns to keep people from coming in. We had to go by ambulance from the hotel to the hospital because those were the only safe vehicles to put on the road.”

“It was kind of a bummer,” Breseman said, “because people were too scared to bring in their kids. But that’s 49 who weren’t done before.”

Breseman, of Marcellus, sterilizes tools for a team that repairs cleft palate birth defects.

From Bangladesh, Breseman continued on to Myramar (Burma) for five days.

“That was fantastic,” he said. “Then I went to Thailand for nine days. There were just too many people there. I didn’t enjoy that.”

He will prepare a program for Dowagiac Rotary Club next month.

Dowagiac Daily News